The ability of an adept to Target Effects.

I have already made known how it is going to be run at my table. I am 90% sure the other two GMs are doing the same. It is fine. Unless there is an official errata posted which turns this opinion question into a facts thing that is how it is going to be for me. Just makes the most sense and even with the ruling my character who has access to the power in question as an optional talent will STILL be buying it and using it because it is awesome.

Except that there is really no hurry. Nobody has any of the Talents in question except for Battle Bellow, and even using it with my understanding of how it works, I use Battle Shout more often. Often I don't use Battle Bellow at all until/unless all valid targets have been Battle Shouted once already. I would rather get an official answer to this before I use it again.

The thing I dislike most about Earthdawn is that none of the developers seem to feel any need to have a "tight" command of text. They use terms that they don't define, They use the terms inconsistently, and they seem to feel that interpretation should be done on a local level, rather than have one way that is considered globally "Right". Emeketos joked the other day that Mataxes was the "Earthdawn supreme court", I don't think Mataxes would have liked that joke. On the issue of "Penalties to all tests" Mataxes joked about the 3rd edition developers: "Weeeell.... that's assuming it wasn't a decision made based on (unexamined) assumptions about the way things worked". I really do like rules that have been poured over and polished to be clear, concise, and unambiguous. There simply should not be this many questions about how it works.

Mataxes finally posted on the forum thread specific to the Target Group topic. http://www.fasagames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=597&p=4747#p4747I would have bet any amount of money you cared to name that he would have supported the position I have been arguing. But though he used phrases like "reads to me", and what he thinks the "intent" is, he went with the Area of Effect interpretation! You could blow me down with a feather!

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The general rules are as follows:

Area of Effect talents/spells (e.g. Fireball) affect every valid target in the area of effect. Exempting targets generally requires some kind of special exemption provided in the description.

If an ability has some kind of hard limit on the number of targets (e.g. Lightning Bolt, which is limited based on the number of successes), then the user gets to decide which targets. (Other abilities might be limited by talent rank or the like.)

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To address Battle Bellow specifically, it reads to me like more of an AoE effect -- there's no hard limit to the number of potential targets. (Realistically, there is, simply based on how many people can be in the potential area, and the practicality of beating the DN that might result. But that limit isn't imposed by the talent itself.)

The intent is that it affects all targets in range as an AoE. This is simpler to track -- allies in the area get the bonus, enemies the penalty.

I can, however, understand the interpretation of being able to select targets, since there's nothing specific to indicate the talent affects all targets in the affected area. If, at your table, you want to be selective about targets, go for it. It's slightly more work to track, since it's no longer a blanket effect, but if the group is okay with it, that's fine. Just be consistent.

(Going that route makes the talent slightly more powerful/useful because the adept can be selective about targets in order to maximize potential for success and effect. But I don't think it's game breaking.)

He replied to somebody else pointing out one of the arguments I pointed out in this thread

Quote :

Which, you know, is a perfectly valid reason for running it a different way.

Well at least you have the answer and now we can hopefully move on. I agree changing it from intended would not be game breaking and if this wasnt an org where balance is a thing I may consider doing it differently but this is an org and we want to stick with RAW as often as possible so it just seems that is the way I am gonna run it.